Zhongguancun to construct international scientific and innovative center

The Zhongguancun Index 2016 was released at the opening ceremony of the 2016 National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week Beijing theme exhibition on October 12 by Zhao Hong, vice president of the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.

The "Zhongguancun index" is a comprehensive index that describes the latest trends and features of Zhongguancun innovative development. It is compiled through research conducted by the Beijing Fangdi Institute of Economy and the Center for Innovation and Development of Zhongguancun.

The index consists of six sub-indexes: innovation and entrepreneurship environment, innovation ability, industrial development, enterprise growth, commitment to growth, and internationalization, and includes 14 secondary indexes and 38 tertiary ones.

At the ceremony, Zhao Hong explained that the Zhongguancun index 2016 sets the 2008 index as the base period with 100 points. The 2015 comprehensive index's level is 375.9 points, an increase of 90.1 compared to that of 2015.

The Zhongguancun's comprehensive index from 2008 to 2015. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The newest innovation and entrepreneurship environment index is 542.1, top among the six sub-indexes, and 184.4 points higher than that of 2015, the fastest growth among the sub-indexes. This result owes much to the rapid development of scientific financing in Zhongguancun. The increasing number of international venture investment facilities gathering in Zhongguancun is another reason for the rapid growth of this index.

Due to the growth of overseas investment and mergers and acquisitions, the internationalization index grew to 439.9 points, 158.3 over the 2015 index.

The indexes of commitment to growth, innovation ability, industrial development and enterprise growth were 358.3, 334.8, 265.4 and 260.6, respectively increases of 68.2, 73.1, 19.5 and 9.9 over those of 2015.

The sub indexes in Zhongguancun index 2016. [Photo/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In recent years, Zhongguancun has grown into an internationally influential scientific and innovative center. Since the Chinese government put forward policies to encourage mass innovation and entrepreneurship in 2015, Zhongguancun has been developing new economics to improve its innovation upgrading and entrepreneurship ecological system.

According to the Zhongguancun Index 2016, four features of Zhongguancun's development can be identified.

First, Zhongguancun has become a leading international figure in some innovation fields, such as artificial intelligence, new materials and biotechnology. Zhongguancun has also made great achievements in industries such as black technology and hard technology.

More and more leading technology and advanced industrial achievements are cradled in the Zhongguancun Science Park. In 2015 alone, the number of patents granted reached 13,000, which was a year-on-year growth of 66.1 percent.

Second, the number of scientific enterprises is growing fast. The park's "unicorns" -- companies with more than one billion dollars' market assessment -- account for 50 percent of those in China, ranking second on a global scale only to Silicon Valley.

Zhongguancun has occupied a high land of innovative enterprises incubation.

Third, Zhongguancun constantly adapts to the needs of economic development and keeps improving its innovation and entrepreneurship ecology, helping to realize a completely new innovative reform.

The science park has established an entrepreneurial environment similar to that of overseas, aiming to attract more scientific researchers returning to China.

Fourth, Zhongguancun is strengthening its open and cooperative innovation strategy to improve its international resource allocation ability and to play a significant role in global innovation networks.

It attracts many internationally famous enterprises to its science park, and, at the same time, encourages establishment of similar centers for placement of outstanding talents and development of advanced technology.